This article has been updated.
The Attorney General’s Office filed a new felony charge against Secretary of State Dianna Duran on Friday, accusing her of identity theft for listing a former state senator as her campaign treasurer without his knowledge.
Courtesy photo
Dianna Duran
The new charge comes after The Santa Fe New Mexican’s Milan Simonich wrote on Monday about Duran listing a Don Kidd as her campaign treasurer in 2010.
“If she listed me, she did it on her own,” Simonich quoted Kidd as saying. “I didn’t sign any checks or pay any bills for her, and that’s what a campaign treasurer does.”
Kidd said the same thing to investigators.
“Mr. Kidd explained that the information on the campaign reports was untrue; he was not the campaign treasurer,” states the new criminal complaint filed Friday. “He advised that he contributed to the campaign, but that was his only involvement.”
Duran listed Kidd as her treasurer on 10 reports filed between 2010 and 2013, according to the complaint.
The attorney general charged Duran in August with fraud, embezzlement and money laundering in a 64-count criminal complaint alleging she abused the state’s campaign finance system for personal gain. Among the allegations is that Duran deposited a $600 check into her personal account that her campaign issued to Sean Davis of Tularosa for “equipment & work on campaign,” the attorney general claims.
Duran allegedly forged Davis’ signature. Investigators say Davis didn’t work for Duran, endorse the check, or receive the money.
So it’s important to know who, if anyone, was watching Duran’s campaign finances as treasurer.
The new criminal complaint states that investigators have compared Duran’s 2010 campaign bank account with her finance reports and found more than 100 bank transactions totaling more than $10,000 that don’t show up on Duran’s finance reports.
In a separate document filed in court Friday, the Attorney General’s Office stated that the unreported bank spending included “transactions at casinos, restaurants, gas stations and jewelry stores and cash withdrawals at ATM machines.”
That document, which details some of the evidence the AG’s Office plans to introduce against Duran, also states the following:
- That Duran “misrepresented her finances in tax returns annually from 2010 and 2013.”
- That in 2010 Duran deposited “several” checks into a personal bank account she shares with her husband that indicated they were campaign donations but weren’t reported on campaign finance reports. Duran’s husband hasn’t been charged in the case.
- That in August 2010 Duran deposited a check from former state Rep. and lieutenant governor candidate Brian Moore and his wife Linda into her personal account. The $500 check had “Secretary of State!” written on the memo line, the court filing states. Duran has not been charged with any crime related to the check from the Moores.
Duran has pleaded not guilty to the charges filed in August. Her attorney, Erlinda Ocampo Johnson, had no immediate comment Friday on the new charge, saying she hadn’t seen the criminal complaint.
Identity theft is a fourth-degree felony punishable by up to 18 months in prison.